Back in April we blogged about the temporary halt on the sale of Turkish property to foriegners by a Turkish Constitutional Court ruling. The ban of the title deed act named Tapu has now been lifted by a new court ruling on May 1st.

The deed system change will be effective within the next few weeks once the official gazette will publish the news. What prompted this action was a constitutional rights contrary that affected article 35 of the Tapu title deed act.

Contrary to popular belief, the issue itself had nothing to do with whether foreigners were allowed to purchase property and land in Turkey, but more so with the size of land that could be bought according to the government.

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A Turkish Constitutional Court ruling effective from today (Wednesday April 16) has put a temporary halt on the sale of Turkish property to foreigners.

According to Turkish newspaper Hürriyet, a circular letter was sent to all land registry offices in Turkey indicating the end of the sale of real estate to foreigners on Tuesday April 15.

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^{A Resort in Antalya: With Turkey’s new FDI law in place foreign property developers have been barred from developing resorts like this}

A law allowing the sale of real estate in Turkey to foreign companies was annulled by Turkey’s Constitutional Court last Friday. In an attempt to gain entry to the EU, Turkey’s centre-right government previously approved the law allowing the sale of Turkish property to foreign individuals and businesses. This however changed on Friday when the ruling of Turkey’s Constitutional Court favoured the nationalist-leaning Republican People’s Party.

This decision by the court would ultimately affect companies specifically set up to acquire property in Turkey by foreign investors through joint ventures.

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The Global credit crunch is affecting even ski resorts now. Bansko, in Bulgaria, despite still being heavily marketed, is feeling the pinch also. Interest in the town dropped off severely in 2007, with prices for hotel rooms dropping, and occupancy down.

Also affected are property prices and with a lack of interest from UK buyers, Bansko is attempting to pull in investors from Russia, Spain and Greece instead. Presumably the Spanish like to head away from the horrible winter weather, much like the Brits.

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Is a combination of political, legal, cultural, economic, and geographic factors making Albania the next big thing in Overseas property investments?

A recent report drew an extremely favorable picture of the future of property investment in the country, which is currently Europe’s least developed and, despite positive developments, still suffers from a poor to non-existent infrastructure, including its road and electricity networks.

According to the report, Albania could be following in the steps of other destinations on the Balkans that experienced big property investment booms over the last decade. “Recently Albania has put itself firmly on the map, both as an increasingly popular tourism destination, and an emerging market on the international property investment scene”.

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Price per square foot can be an interesting approach to pricing real estate and we though it would be interesting to compare luxury condominium prices around the world to other types of space for sale. How much space in a luxury condominium would you get for £100,000? These prices are based on Knight Frank’s annual wealth report 2007 and may have changed slightly since then. These are the top ten contenders.

1. London

London currently tops the list. £100,000 buys you 43.5 square feet. Coincidentally, this is exactly the same footprint as the Ford Escape, an American SUV. So you can rest assured you will be able to park the car at this price.

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After our in depth look at dubious building developments in Eastern Europe, Forbes magazine has jumped on the band wagon and gone a little up market. In that vein, we decided to present some of the most expensive properties in Eastern Europe. Some are currently for sale, some are just in need of an idea to turn them into money makers and some are just plain expensive.

Sotheby’s International are offering this gem on the “Cote D’Azur of Baltics,” Latvia. Price undisclosed.

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Where to Look

The basic choice is quite simple; Zagreb, the Croatian capital, or the Dalmatian coast. The former is more likely to be seen strictly from an investment perspective while the coast can be viewed either that way or as delightful for owner use. The Dalmatian coastline offers a choice island or mainland destinations and all sizes. With the exception of a few locations such as Medulin, which have large communist era tourist developments, what you nearly always get is plenty of history and atmosphere. Even Pula, a former Austrian naval base, has a fantastic Romanamphitheater, while the Istrian resorts of Porec and Rovinj are less than 60 miles away from Venice (to which they both have ferry services) and like cities further south, Dubrovnik or Zadar for example, are strongly reminiscent of Italy’s centres of renaissance culture.

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